2012 archive
Twits on Twitter 0
The Guardian on your legal right (in the UK, at least) to be a twit:
(snip)
When emails were a novelty, however, few parliamentarians paid attention to e-freedoms – unaware they had anything to do with day-to-day life. Well, now they do – and so merit the old vigilance. Tweets may invite rage or ridicule. But a tweeter’s right to make a fool of themselves must be defended to the death.
Read the rest.
Mitt the Flip’s Song of the South 0
Chauncey Devega mercilessly dissects Mitt the Flip’s Southern Strategy Dixie dog whistles.
A nugget:
By proxy, these racially driven attacks on Barack Obama are really an assault on Black Americans. We are positioned in the White Conservative political imagination as perennial outsiders and second class citizens. As the late Joel Olson smartly observed, in the American political tradition, and in a country founded as a herrenvolk society, to be black means to be an “anti-citizen.”
He’s quite right, you know.
I’m a Southern boy. I know how to decode the damned code.
Aside:
We recently came into possession of a DVD of Disney’s Song of the South. Until then, all I had seen of the movie were the animated bits about Br’er Rabbit that used air on Walt Disney’s television show when I was a young ‘un.
The casual implicit racism, which was quite mainstream when the movie was filmed less than a long lifetime ago, made my skin crawl.
That is the America of the Southern Strategy and the Republican Party.
I doubt that I could watch the movie again, however amusing the animated bits might be (and even the portrayals of the animals in those fables was infused with racist imagery).
Mittiquette 0
Dr. Gerry Mander explains British manners to Mitt the Flip the Brits the bird:
It is not uncommon for Americans visiting Britain to be surprised at the extent of cultural difference between us. You say sidewalk, we say pavement. Our pants are something you wear underneath your pants. But when it comes to transatlantic diplomacy, the important thing to bear in mind is that, in this country, when you are invited to a “tea party”, it means a polite exchange of anodyne chat over a hot beverage brewed from leaves, not a deranged nationalist cult based around hatred of government, guns and religious fanaticism.
Follow the link for more advice from Dr. Mander.
Facebook Frolics 1
Your “news feed” is for sale:
These ads, designed to join the normal streams on members’ news feeds and status updates, are already generating about $1 million per day in revenue in limited testing.
What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Them 0
Following in the footsteps of the tobacco industry . . . .
It can’t possibly be because they fear facts, now, can it? A nugget from Dan Morain in the Sacramento Bee:
“This is a deliberate effort to keep evidence from being collected,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, a UC Davis Medical School professor and one of the few researchers in the nation who focuses on guns and gun violence. “It is one more way to prevent policy reform. It’s a brilliant strategy.”
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
Alyona explains how Mitt the Flip off the Brits distracted from real news about real Frackers.
The Fireboat Next Time 0
The Bensalem, Pennsylvania, volunteer fire department chose to use a gazillion-dollar Homeland Security grant for a fireboat, even though Bensalem has no approachable riverfront, no marianas, no shipping, and no port.
Apparently, they just wanted a boat that spurts. A nugget from a long article by Monica Yant Kinney:
Just before midnight on Jan. 14, a guard patrolling the desolate Neshaminy State Marina called 911. The only boat docked there – “Marine 37” – was sinking.
Earlier that day, firefighters struck something while training with an employee of the Canadian manufacturer, MetalCraft Marine.
“A series of failures,” explains then-chief Jerri, “led to us not noticing there was a hole in the boat.”
The “Bear” took on 2,000 gallons and had to be lifted out of the water, drained, and repaired. Union paid the marina $500 for the use of a crane, but MetalCraft took the blame and ate the cost of the weeks-long repair.
On their own a month later, Union members destroyed a dock box and paid $600 for a replacement. Pulling in and out of the marina, they repeatedly damaged rub rails.
On April Fools’ Day, the “Bear” struck and sank a $25,000 hydraulic lift. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission investigated but filed no charges. Union covered the $500 repair.
That’s just since they took delivery in January.
Hope they do a better job driving their fire engines.
Gaming the Games 0
The spirit of international cooperation corporation is manifest at the quadrennial athletic marketing fest:
It isn’t just about the Olympics clearing the way for its biggest sponsors to indulge in an orgy of marketing and promotion unfettered by rivals. In the U.K., media reports said that an 81 year-old woman who wanted to sell a doll at a fundraiser for $1.60 was told to think again after authorities found out the doll wore sportswear featuring the Games’ logo and Olympic rings; at the University of Derby, a banner that stated “supporting the London Olympics” had to be taken down.
Pursuit of excellence indeed.
Pursuit of excrescence which dishonors the athletes.
I’m so fed up with the hype and the tripe that I resent even seeing the headlines in the local rag.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
Tony Norman points out the underlying hypocrisy of the gut out the vote movement. After citing Pennsylvania’s legal stipulation that no cases or prosecutions for voter fraud are known to exist in Pennsylvania, he observes:
Now, imagine if this was a debate about gun control. Wouldn’t conservatives be the first to scream that enforcing existing gun laws is all we need to do to stem the tide of death and violence and that adding new laws would only threaten Second Amendment rights?
A. P. Ticker Steps Up To Bat, Man 0
Warning: Mild language.
Cantor’s Cant (Updated) 1
Virginia is no stranger to the politics of bigotry, starting with the Red Letter Year (as it was called in my third grade history book) through the Civil War, Jim Crow, Massive Resistance, and beyond.
Now comes Eric Cantor in that grand tradition to support Michelle Bachmann’s mongering of religious hatred, ignorance, and fear.
Details at C&L.
Addendum:
Be sure to read George Smith’s comment to this and follow his link to learn more about the merchants of hate.
Facebook Frolics 0
Facebook ’em, Dano.
According to an affidavit for a search warrant, one of the Facebook messages on Hicks’ page contained a threat to assault Underwood. “Underwood spoke with Norfolk investigators and indicated he took the threat to be serious,” the warrant says.
I suspect that overreaction is involved in this, but fighting words are fighting words, whether in person, in ink, or in electrons.